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DISASTER NEWS
Bird flu spreads in various Asian countries
27 Jun
2007
The H5N1
subtype of the avian influenza virus has
spread among poultry to another district in
northern Bangladesh, said officials on
Wednesday (June 27). The latest case was
reported in a village in Thakurgaon
district, 310 miles (500 km) northwest of
the capital, Dhaka. Health workers have
since culled 5,000 chickens to check the
spread. The bird flu virus was first
detected near the capital in March and has
since spread to 16 of 64 districts,
particularly in the north, but so far no
human cases have been reported in
Bangladesh. The same cannot be said for
Indonesia, which has the world's highest
human fatality rate from bird flu. Indonesia
confirmed one more human bird flu case on
Saturday (June 23), with the infection of a
3-year-old girl in Sumatra who had contact
with dead chickens. Her infection brings
Indonesia's human bird flu cases to 101, of
which 80 have died. Elsewhere in Asia,
Vietnam's Health Ministry confirmed Friday
(June 29) two new human cases of bird flu.
One is a 29-year-old man from Vinh Phuc
Province, while the other is a
19-year-old-man from Thai Nguyen Province,
both of whom had contact with poultry.
According to Vietnamese officials, there
have been five human cases of bird flu since
late 2005, with two fatalities. Moving over
to Myanmar, although there have been no
human bird flu cases there, a new report
this week cautions that bird flu is at risk
of spreading due to lack of compensation for
culled birds. According to the Economist
Intelligence Unit's June 2007 Country Report
on Burma (Myanmar), the bird flu virus could
spread more widely in the country due to the
government's lack of adequate compensation
for poultry farmers. Without providing
compensation, "farmers are likely to be
discouraged from notifying the authorities
of suspected outbreaks of bird flu, thereby
undermining official efforts to contain the
spread of the virus," said the report. Bird
flu was detected earlier this year when
outbreaks prompted the culling of over
60,000 chickens. Despite the spread of bird
flu in many parts of Asia, Malaysia seems to
have contained its outbreak. Earlier this
month, the H5N1 virus was confirmed in
poultry for the first time in a year in
Malaysia. However, by June 15, Malaysian
officials reported it had been successfully
contained, and they are planning to ask the
World Health Organization (WHO) soon to
declare it H5N1-free. Globally there have
thus far been 314 human cases of bird flu,
with 191 deaths, according to WHO. Experts
fear the virus will mutate into a form
transmitted from human-to-human, sparking a
global pandemic.
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